Alpine soils and forests:
securing ecosystem services in the Pamir
mountains of Tajikistan
Farrukh Nazarmavloev, Gulniso Nekushoeva, Pjotr M. Sosin and
Bettina Wolfgramm
source: http://boris.unibe.ch/71551/ | downloaded: 14.6.2017
Farming for subsistence in high-altitude locations, such as
the Gunt valley in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan, requires
specific attention to managing the soils in harsh mountainous
environments. While fertile soils have developed in valley
bottoms and especially under forest cover, land-use changes
in these semi-arid ecosystems may critically affect soil
conditions and lead to desertification. However, if soils are
managed well, the ecosystem can provide multiple benefits.
People in the remote Pamir villages rely on food, fodder and fuel produced from
their land for their livelihoods. However, they face many challenges including
harsh climate, high disaster risk (e.g. avalanches, snowstorms, droughts), shortage
of arable land, difficult access to irrigation water and lack of financial resources.
Forests play a major role in providing fuelwood and non-timber forest products
such as berries, mushrooms, nuts, honey, medicinal plants, foliage, seeds and
seedlings. Forests are also used for grazing animals, the number of which has
increased greatly over the last 20 years.
The large and dense forest covering the floodplains in the Tajik Pamirs were
teeming with wildlife, as mentioned by many expeditions before and in the first
decades of the Soviet era (for example Korzeniewski 1903). It is estimated that
forest cover in Tajikistan in 1910 was still around 25 percent. Today, official data
state that forest cover in Tajikistan is only around 3 percent.
Land-use changes affecting the high alpine natural ecosystems in the Tajik Pamirs
increased with the independence of the Republic of Tajikistan in 1991 and the cut
in imported goods, including wheat, fodder such as hay, but also coal and wood.
Food and energy scarcity during and after the Tajik civil war in the 1990s led to
severe land degradation, with a reduction in soil functions, such as regulation
of soil nutrients, water and temperature. It also affected soil-related ecosystem
services, such as soil nutrient availability, control of erosion by water and wind,
length of the growing period and, consequently, biomass production and plant
diversity. Overgrazing, deforestation and expansion of cropland to forest areas are
16
Cultivating potato fields in Jamoat Vanqala,
Tajikistan (Marcel Reinhard)
Riverine forests along the Gunt river, Jamoat Vanqala, Tajikistan (Bettina Wolfgramm)
the main pressures on land and, especially, forest resources. In this same period,
coal imports have become rare, and therefore costly, which has led to continuous
cutting of the forests, bush lands and trees along rivers and on mountain slopes.
As the winter is long (October to May), there is an extremely high demand for
fuelwood for heating and cooking. Climate conditions are unfavourable for fruit
trees, but poplar trees and buckthorn grow well.
The information presented here resulted from an applied research study conducted
in the Vanqala municipality, located in the Gunt valley at 3 100 masl, that identified
limitations of agricultural production such as the need for irrigation, constant
temperature fluctuations during the growing season that may cause crops to
freeze, and cold winds that affect plant growth and lead to erosion. In general,
local farmers who cultivate mainly fodder crops, such as lucerne (Medicago sativa)
and sainfoin (Onobrychis), need to apply land management technologies to
increase land productivity under these soils, water and temperature conditions,
while reducing erosion processes and maintaining soil quality.
The study aimed to identify forest cover changes as well as the specific soil
conservation practices in this area, and to estimate their impact on soil resources
and related ecosystem services. Soil organic matter was used as a health indicator
to assess the impact of the management practices. The information on sustainable
land management (SLM) technologies was documented using the World
Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) standardized
questionnaire. The land use change since the mid-1970s was analysed using
satellite imagery, Corona imagery from 1968 and RapidEye imagery from 2010,
covering around 130 km2 of study area.
Overall, the study found a 54 percent increase in arable land and a 34 percent
decrease in forest and bush land in the study area. In specific cases, such as the
village of Patkhor, it detected a 53 percent forest cover change, indicating that
its forest area had been reduced to less than half of the forest area in the 1960s.
Other villages were able to protect their forest resources better.
While forest resources were generally heavily degraded, some families managed
to improve the tree cover by, e.g. planting a dense buckthorn forest belt to shelter
fields from temperature fluctuations, cold winds and frost or planting poplar
forests in the flood plains of the high mountain river areas. The low temperature
in the study area is not favourable for most trees species. The natural forest mainly
consists of slow growing trees. However, plantations of poplar (Populus Pamirico)
and willow trees (Salix Schugnanica Coerz) can be established fast with a good
17
water supply, which can be provided by rivers or by irrigation systems. Around 10
ha of low productive pasture land in alluvial sandy soils along the river was turned
into a poplar forest by creating an irrigation canal and planting seedlings along
it. In the first year, the area needed to be protected from grazing cattle and from
neighbours cutting trees.
The soil analysis found that soil under the poplar trees has more organic matter
(3.88% in the first 30 cm) compared with other surrounding plots (2.58-2.78%).
Lessons learned
•Agroforestry and forestry systems
for producing food, fodder and fuel
can also contribute to improved
management of soil resources and
enhance long-term provision of
ecosystem services in temperate areas.
•These systems can protect soils from
wind and water erosion, contributing
to sustainable nutrient supplies. The
tree cover creates a micro-climate and
reduces the impact of temperature
extremes in order to increase
production in these harsh mountainous
environments, it is also crucial to
protect soils from cold winds and cold
spells during the summer season.
•The benefits resulting from agroforestry
plots are manifold and include
significant improvements of soil fertility,
productivity, biodiversity and carbon
stocks, compared with the surrounding
arid desert landscape.
Corona imagery of the village of Pathkur, with forest cover change classification between 1968 and
2010. A misclassified area is marked with a white arrow (Selina Studer)
Plantation of poplar forest in the flood plains of the
high mountain river areas. Gunt valley, Tajikistan
(Gulniso Nekushoeva)
18